BLOG # 21…May 2013

A couple of things I’ve seen lately have reminded me how lucky we are here in Canada to be able to speak our minds openly and fairly safely.

 

Steven Harper Hates Me is the title of a show by Gabrielle de Montmollin that’s up until May 18 at the red head gallery, a cooperative artists’ space at 401 Richmond St. in Toronto.  De Montmollin takes a number of images of our Prime Minister and renders them as Clown or Satan, using humour as a sharp tool to make her point… my favourite is Ignorant Man Despising What He Doesn’t Know Standing in My Studio. Writer Susan Swan has composed an essay to accompany the show in which she calls Gabrielle’s world “fantastic, fearless and furious” and defines the work as “the artist’s longing to stage a conversation with Harper.”  It’s a one sided conversation though, rather like the one Yann Martell tried to initiate in 2007 on the 50^th anniversary of the Canada Council by sending our Prime Minister a book every other week…so far no answer.

 

At the other end of the spectrum of expressive freedom is Pussy Riots, a film that played at HotDocs earlier this month.  Pussy Riots, a Russian feminist punk rock collective, shows the young performance artists protesting Vladimir Putin’s third term as president which puts him in charge until 2024.  They chose the recently rebuilt Church of our Saviour to protest both the erosion of the democracy which seemed so promising with the fall of the Soviet Union and the conflating of church and state.  It aroused immensely strong feelings resulting in arrests, trials and prison sentences for two of the young women.  The choice of venue was hugely inflammatory, Russians who’ve been deprived of religious expression for over 70 years, reacted emotionally to an extent that somewhat obscured the purpose and the result, alienating many liberal thinkers.  I was enormously moved by these young women, their passion and their courage…when was revolution ever easy - or unemotional?

And, anybody else see the irony in our Prime Minister referring to the attack ads directed at Justin Trudeau as “part of the democratic debate” Last time I checked democracy didn’t include bullying.

Blog # 20…April 2013

Creativity and social awareness often seem to go hand-in-hand…so many artists of all kinds are strongly connected to the sounds, sights, shapes and smells of the world around them, and to the state of the environment and its inhabitants, or maybe they’re artists because they are already attuned to their surroundings.

Whatever the sequence,  a lot of public figures are using their names and face recognition to call attention to issues and causes – Sarah Harmer defending the Niagara Escarpment, Matt Damon working to supply clean water to communities in Africa, and the members of PEN International  speaking out for the rights of writers imprisoned or exiled around  the world.

In his recent book, Celebrity Diplomacy, Andrew Cooper observes, “Celebrities bring optimism and ‘buzz’ to issues that seem deep and gloomy. Even if their lofty goals remain elusive, when celebrities speak, other actors in the global system listen.”

A week ago, I spent some time at a new initiative called the SPUR Festival. Launched in Toronto, SPUR has plans to be “Canada’s first national festival of politics, art and ideas.” Shyam Selvedurai spoke of his arrival in Canada as an immigrant from Sri Lanka; Guillermo Verdecchia, Michael Healey and Hannah Moscovich looked at how playwrights present stories that may move us to action or new ways of thinking and Hendrick Hertzberg, a regular contributor to The New Yorker, closed the day with a discussion about money and political influence.

I love this kind of cross pollination, getting us out of our narrow notions of what art is or where you’ll find it - Helen Walsh, the festival director and her colleagues at Diaspora Dialogues and The Literary Review of Canada are to be congratulated for getting it on, spurring the action so to speak..  Serious discussion and fun are two other mash ups that I like… earlier in the week, SPUR ran a session on political satire, makes me appreciate how lucky we are to live in a place where we can engage in it safely…more about that in my next post.

Do these efforts - watching Sean Penn get his hands dirty helping rebuild in Haiti or singing along with Bono at a Band Aid concert-   accomplish anything in the long run?  Does the fun scoop up some folks and make them think a bit more deeply about issues of equality, fairness and generosity?  The majority of people who attend events like this are probably pretty well endowed with those qualities already, but I’m optimistic.  Like the Chinese proverb about the man moving the mountain…little by little it will be moved... and, bit by bit, peoples’ ideas are moved too.

If you’re reading this in Winnipeg, you’ll have the SPUR festival in a couple of weeks - April 26-28… tell your friends.

 

Blog 19…March 2013

Transformation by Fire is the compelling title of a current exhibit at the Gardiner Museum…another little treasure on the Toronto art scene.    It features  women overcoming violence in their histories by working with clay and was a perfect thing to see with my friend Camille (see blog # 2), a ceramic artist working with women in tough situations, great company at shows  of all kinds.

 In partnership with the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, the exhibition at the Gardiner is an act of social activism, tackling the violence experienced by the women involved by providing them with a chance to tell their stories using clay sculpture, narratives and video. The work was created in groups facilitated by art therapist Suzanne Thomson and artist Susan Low-Beer over 11 weeks last year. The annual sessions, offered to a different group each year,  provide a safe place for women to begin healing by creating both language and images.

Clay is a uniquely therapeutic medium, both responsive and expressive. Transformed by firing at high temperatures in a kiln (it changes its molecular structure in a process called quartz conversion)  it becomes a stronger and harder material, never returning to its former state.  And the women involved in this project become stronger too, transforming their trauma into a visible form and leaving behind some of their former selves.  Shaping clay is, in many ways, like shaping our lives – we have to work hard at it, there’s a certain amount of unpredictability and often, surprises and unexpected discoveries emerge.  

In this show, clay also provides a forum for social change.  Bringing the women’s work into the public sphere raises awareness of violence against women and  personalizes it by presenting the individuals’ stories with moving statements …”Channeling our trauma into creativity”…”life will win out, no matter how miserable and desolate individual circumstances are.”   Working with clay, the women shift their sense of themselves from victims to survivors, activists, educators…and artists. 

Transformation by Fire runs at the Gardiner Museum until April 28^th … worth the trip to Avenue Road and Bloor and admission is FREE.

Blog 18...February 2013

On a dark and stormy night a while ago,  I went down to the Young Centre in the Distillery District to see RARE, a very special theatre experience created and directed by Judith Thompson. Expanded from a hugely successful run last summer at the Fringe, RARE is an ensemble piece starring nine adults with Down’s syndrome - they also played a part in developing the script.  

John Hawkes, commenting on his role as quadriplegic poet Mark O’Brien in The Sessions, says,
” Art in general can help us shed light on things we normally look away from.”  It’s impossible to look away from these engaging young men and women in RARE as they dance, sing and speak movingly of their hopes and dreams with eloquence and humour. Some of their thoughts are expressed in poetry...Yeats’ “One man loved the pilgrim soul in you”  brought tears to my eyes as it always does and Hamlet's soliloquy poses a question we all ask ourselves on occasion.

The players often don masks to conceal their faces, an effective way to erase even further the sense that they are different, and reminding us too of  the universality of their ideas and fears. Suzanne overcomes difficulty speaking to tell us of the shooting death of her brother; Nicholas treats his homosexuality in a refreshingly matter-of–fact way and Krystal reads a letter to mothers urging them to “be brave” and not terminate pregnancies if Down’s syndrome is detected.

The individuals in RARE are as diverse in their size, shape and ethnicity as they are in their personalities.  As I watched, I couldn’t help thinking of the five young people in my 1981 film Free Dive who took such delight in their identity as divers, at least for the duration of the film. We heard from many disabled people after its release telling us how the film changed their image of themselves and  encouraged them to try something they hadn’t thought possible. I’m sure RARE will have a similar effect.

Using theatre to engage us with people who are different from us in some way, whether it’s a noblewoman having a secret affair, an old man with no home or a young person with Down’s syndrome, encourages us to be a bit more generous, widens our horizon a few inches and generally makes the world a better place.

Judith Thompson has plans for future plays featuring people in wheelchairs and people who are deaf; she’s to be congratulated for tackling these issues, opening our eyes and hearts to some of our fellows . 

  

Blog 17…January 2013

"What's art got to do with it?"  Isabel Fryszberg has been asking throughout her career as an occupational therapist, musician and film maker.  Since Isabel started the Creative Works Studio in the late 90"s and in many conversations we've had over the years before and since, we've both clung to the notion that art has a lot to do with everything, especially with making life better for people with mental health issues. We share many things, Isabel and I... we're neighbours, fellow occupational therapists and have both made films on subjects dear to our hearts.  Isabel has tackled two of her passions with a film featuring some of the artists who create in the Studio and to post a blog on her work is both inevitable and a pleasure for me.

From the opening shot of a Toronto streetcar to its finale at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibit, this film (called What’s Art Got to do With It, btw) is a delightful way to meet and gain a bit of insight into the lives of  individuals with mental illness. 

There are some common themes that emerge: the studio is described by everyone as a safe place to put aside the pain and anxiety that usually haunts their lives and to feel understood by the other artists who form a welcoming community. They feel it helps them take over the illness rather than the illness being in charge. It gives then a reason to get up in the morning, there’s a sense of freedom to express feelings as well as creativity and maybe most important of all…they have fun.

Courtney feels he can express his inner self through his art, not just the bad parts, the good parts as well… Linda finds that her photography links her to her surroundings and the reactions of people to the beauty of her photos has turned her life around… Melanie lost custody of her children during an episode of illness and the sculptured angels that she makes (and sells in the gift shop of St Michael’s Hospital) represent for her the unconditional love for those children and help her bear the pain of their absence… Peace and tranquility are what John loves… Thomas says that “even the worst day here is better than I felt before.” …Inna’s work with ceramics helped her re start her life and Yury feels that the creative work done by the artists changes the public’s view of people with mental illness and can do a great deal to reduce stigma.

Throughout the film, there are shots of the artists collaborating with Isabel, students and staff members writing and performing a catchy song that’s been bouncing around my head all week.

I go to a lot of films and I‘ve noticed in the past year or so an evolving approach to the portrayal of people with disabilities of some sort.  I’m thinking of The Intouchables, Amour, The Sessions, and Silver Lining Playbook.  The individuals involved in these works come across as having pretty much the same hopes and dreams we all do… in other words, they’re pretty much like the rest of us. This does as much or more to combat stigma (as Yury says in What’s Art Got To Do With It?)  as many of the public awareness media campaigns.  Isabel’s film is right up there, she’s planning to submit it to Hot Docs where it would have a huge audience, let’s hope it’s accepted.

Blog 16… December, 2012

Remembrance Day passed a while ago and I was struck by several pieces in newspapers referring to the art of war, also by Pat Barker describing her latest novel Toby’s Room, about an art instructor at the Slade School in London who aids in reconstructing the faces of injured soldiers during and after WW1.  More about that in a future blog, but it set me to thinking more about remembering and memorialising events and people through art – there was a bit about it in my blog on tattoos,  here’s more.  

In 1999, ten years after 14 young female engineering students at L’Ecole Polytechnique were gunned down on December 6^th in what’s become known as the Montreal Massacre, my friend BA and I were invited to be part of an event at Massey Hall called Fourteen Remembered 

            Genevieve Bergeron ….. Helene Colgan….. Nathalie Croteau….. Barbara Daigneault

           Anne- Marie Edward….. Maud Havernick….. Barbara Maria Klucznick…..
      Maryse Laganiere....  Maryse Leclair… Anne- Marie Lemay

                    Sonia Pelletier….. Michelle Richard….. Annie St Arnaud….. Annie Turcotte

   

                        

Created by dancer and choreographer Peggy Baker and her husband, the late composer Ahmed Hassan, it was a performance of sorrow and joy, incorporating an original composition for each of the women. There were solemn processions of women and children (that’s where BA and I came in) individual dance performances and  rituals of mourning and honouring the dead from different cultures. A  number of moving texts about the lives of courageous women past and present  inspired us in the face of the sadness of remembering. The theme throughout was to hold the women’s names in our hearts as they were chanted over and over in a mesmerizing way as background to the music, the dance and the spoken words, imprinting the names in our minds in the process of remembering.

               Genevieve Bergeron ….. Helene Colgan….. Nathalie Croteau….. Barbara Daigneault

           Anne- Marie Edward….. Maud Havernick….. Barbara Maria Klucznick…..
      Maryse Laganiere....  Maryse Leclair… Anne- Marie Lemay

                    Sonia Pelletier….. Michelle Richard….. Annie St Arnaud….. Annie Turcotte

             

The event came and went too quickly, but I have a CD of the sound of Fourteen Remembered and as I listen to it each year on December 6^th  I can recreate some sense of what the day looked and felt like.  This is in memory of the 14 women killed in Montreal 23 years ago and also of Ahmed Hassan, who composed and performed much of the music and whose voice brought us the names of the women.

Blog 15…November 2012.

Used to be that if you saw a guy with tattoos (and it was pretty much always a guy) you could be almost sure he was a sailor, a biker or just out of the slammer. Today tattoos are ubiquitous (you see them everywhere as well) and have become more or less a fashion statement – a recent New Yorker cover showed Mitt Romney getting his changed to reflect his flip – flopping policies. Tattoo parlours used to be sort of sleazy places, now one of several in my neighbourhood looks like a chic hair salon .

Tattoos have been around for at least 5000 years but they were first spotted in modern times by Captain Cook on one of his voyages amongst the people of the Pacific Islands. I get a bird’s eye view in the changing room where I swim and have to keep from staring at the array of images and the imaginative way they adorn female anatomy.  In the warm weather the horizon widens and I can feast my eyes on body art on the street, the bus, even, I hear, the office.

In primitive societies, tattoos denoted social status, family rank or tribal affiliations. My not so extensive research (n= 10 or so) has revealed many reasons for people to ornament themselves, using their own skins as a canvas to memorialize friends and family members who’ve died or pledging love forever like a valentine. They can be a reminder of a personal mantra “There’s nothing wrong here” or as one person told me, marking the spot of a painfully memorable injection.  There are a growing number of young descendants of holocaust survivor s honouring the suffering and survival of their ancestors with their concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms…an indelible act of remembrance.

In psychological terms, tattoos can disguise a shameful body or take possession and control of a body that feels overwhelmed. A body that’s hated can be changed and lovingly decorated. Getting a tattoo can be a rite of passage or an act of empowerment or rebellion, a protest against authority or a badge of belonging to a group (more likely Hell’s Angels than the YMCA). It can be a mark of courage or a creative act to customize a body to reflect who inhabits it

There’s also the issue of how visible the tattoos are. A friend of mine has a discreet small yoga sign on her shoulder that peeks out from under a sundress strap.  My cousin got a tiny astrological glyph on her cheek (the facial one). Some are even more subtle with the deliciously titillating thought that they are only seen in intimate moments.  Or there’s the all - over look, back front, arms, legs, even faces.

Whether modifying the body is rooted in some psychological place or done in a more playful way with a sense of personal adornment, tattoos seem to be here to stay, in more ways than one.  Alessandra Lemma’s book Under the Skin is a very good read if you’re interested in exploring the topic further.